counting down (the weeks, the days, the hours)
by Alexandra Lyman
Summary: He counts down the time left until he's eighteen and can finally leave, join the Navy like his brother and get out of this damn town. She waits to age out of the system so she can live near the beach and finally have a real home. Lieutenant Duckling modern AU.


His dad was drunk again, crawling into the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels and setting up fucking camp there.

Killian shrugged on his battered leather jacket and was out the door before his old man could say a word, bent over his glass and a cigarette at the kitchen table, staring at nothing with rheumy eyes.

He knows he'll come back later to find him slumped over in the chair, passed out cold with a new burn mark scorched into the wood from where the butt would have missed the overflowing ashtray.

Or maybe, he'll come back to find the whole apartment burned to the ground.

(sometimes...he almost wishes for it.)

He waits at the bus stop with his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved into his pockets. Tomorrow is his birthday, eighteen at last and he's spent years counting the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, the damn minutes until he can finally follow Liam, join the Navy, and get the hell out of this damn town. He'll bid farewell to the crappy apartment where the fridge holds nothing but ketchup and expired OJ, say goodbye to the kids at school with their college funds and debates about state schools versus private, and leave behind the man who left him years ago and he won't look back. His dad may still be present, but ever since his mom got fed up with the late nights at the bar and the lost jobs and broken promises and took off with only a scrawled note left on the kitchen table, they've been nothing more than strangers under the same roof. The late nights only got later, the jobs were fewer and farther in between, and it's only the money that Liam wires them every month that keeps the bills somewhat up up date and the landlord at bay.

He's not sure if the old man will even notice when he moves out. But when the money stops and there's no more bottles of Jack stashed in the cupboard or smokes in his pocket, maybe then he'll finally give a shit.

The bus comes and he sits in the back, staring out the window and counting down the hours in his head with his breath fogging the glass and obscuring his reflection. He draws on it with his fingertip, a lopsided heart with two sets of initials, and pierces it with an arrow.

When he reaches his stop he smudges it away with his palm before standing up. She'd make fun of him if she saw it, but he knew she'd be secretly pleased.

If there was anything that could keep him here, anyone who could make him want to stay, it was _her._

KJ + ES

_Emma Swan_

* * *

><p>She'd walked into his English class one day in an oversized plaid flannel shirt and cheap pleather boots, scowling at everyone and sitting in the empty desk beside him. He'd looked at her over his copy of Hamlet and been met by a glare and a kick to his foot, he had his leg stretched out and his sneaker had almost touched her boot by accident. He apologized and she ignored him, scooting her chair across the linoleum with a scrape and turning her back to him.<p>

(she's beautiful, all long blonde hair and big green eyes, and it makes him ache to look at her)

The school's gossip mill had quickly filled him in, she was one of _those_ kids, from the group home across town that was barely a step above a homeless shelter. A ward of the state, a girl with no family, or none that cared, probably with a long line of foster homes and fed-up social workers behind her. Her backpack was held together with duct tape, she wore the same boots every day despite the weather and he suspected they were the only shoes she owned, and certain boys circled around her in the halls like sharks that smelled blood in the water.

(everyone knows girls from the group home were easy lays)

He overheard Neal Cassidy bragging that he'd get her in the back of the Beamer his daddy had bought him in less than a week and he'd punched the SOB square in the face. It had earned him a week's suspension and he'd almost been arrested, it was only David Nolan and Graham Humbert both lying through their teeth to the cops that kept him out of jail, and he doesn't need to do anything to fuck up his chances, not _now_, not when he's so close to getting out, when he's counting down the months, the weeks, the days in his head until he turns eighteen. But he couldn't help it, not when he's seen the little pictures she draws in her notebook during class, the ones she tries to hide with her arm when she catches him looking, kicking his foot and scooting her chair away, not when he's heard the snickering from the other kids when she hands in her free lunch ticket at the cafeteria, watching her slip the apple into her backpack and eat the rest with her back always, _always_, to the wall.

(and besides, Cassidy's always been a dick)

She flat out decked him when she heard about it, calling him an idiot and hissing that she doesn't need "a fucking knight in shining armour" and he "better not get any fucking ideas" before stalking off with her shoulders hunched in a familiar way and he watched her leave, counting down the months, the weeks, the days left until he turns eighteen and can get the fuck out of this town.

(he wonders if she does the same)

His dad doesn't even notice that he spends a week at home instead of in school, locked in his bedroom with his headphones jammed over his ears and counting down the days in his head. He went back to class the next Monday and she ignored him when he dropped down into the desk next to hers, her head bent over her notebook as she sketched something with a pencil.

He told himself not to look, she wanted to be left alone and so did he, and she was right, he's not a fucking knight in shining armour and he doesn't want to be one, but he glanced over anyway and saw she'd drawn a ship, an old-fashioned one with tall sails and a wave crashing over the bow. She caught him looking, but she didn't kick his foot or scoot her chair away, and when he sat down next to her in the cafeteria and put his apple on her tray she slipped it into her backpack with a hint of a smile and they eat side by side with their backs against the wall.

Two weeks later she kisses him for the first time, grabbing his jacket and pulling him flush against her and he was shocked at first but he recovered quickly, kissing her back with everything he's got and that's it, from that moment on they're together.

(they're not dating, they're not boyfriend and girlfriend...they're just together)

And she opened up, slowly, cautiously, doling out the short, sad pages of her life story to him one by one.

The group home _sucks_.

She's there because she ran away from her last three foster homes and no one else will take her.

She has no parents.

She has no family.

But she has plans like he does, she works nights in a diner and saves every penny of her tips, she's going to leave this town when she ages out of the system, find a place near a beach and make it her home.

He tells her about his dad, and how his mom took off. He tells her about how he's going to join the Navy like his brother Liam, who he loves but he hates a little too, for getting out and leaving him behind.

(he counts down the months, the weeks, the days)

They're together, and they have sex in his narrow twin bed. He's not a virgin and neither is she, but it's still all fumbling awkwardness and he blushes when he pulls the condoms out of his dresser, hoping she doesn't think he's like Cassidy, that he bought them because she's the girl from the group home and she's supposed to be an easy lay.

(she's not, nothing about _her, _nothing about _him_, is _easy_)

They don't go to prom, she works her shift in the diner that night and he sits in the back booth, drinking coffee and waiting until she was done. She made twenty seven dollars in tips and they took the bus back to his apartment, sitting in the back row with her head on his shoulder. The apartment was dark and empty, his dad was gone, he didn't know where and he didn't care, it was prom night and there was no corsage on her wrist or rented tux or limo rides with friends, not for them, there was only him and Emma and he wraps his arms around her in the living room and they sway to a song no one else could hear.

And they're together, while he counted down in his head, just days remained, and hours, and minutes, only a few short weeks until he's finally eighteen and he can get the fuck out of this town and leave it all behind.

(he knows she does the same)

* * *

><p>The group home looks homey enough, with the swingset in the yard and the window boxes full of bright yellow flowers. He walks up to it from the bus stop and she's sitting on the front stoop with her hands pulled into her sleeves and scuffing the toes of her cheap pleather boots against the concrete. He'll be eighteen tomorrow, but she's a year younger and still has days, weeks, months to count before she can leave too. When she looks up her eyes are rimmed with red, thinking he's come to say goodbye, that he's leaving just like he planned, that he's leaving her like everyone else has done her whole life.<p>

The diamond is a tiny chip, but it's real, and the band is thin but it's real gold, and the tears fall from her eyes when he pulls the box from his pocket and gets down on one knee. She punches his shoulder and calls him an idiot, and he kisses her and slides the ring on her finger when she stops cursing at him and says yes.

Her social worker rolls his eyes but signs the marriage license in lieu of the parents she doesn't have and two days later he's a day over eighteen and they're at the courthouse. She holds a bouquet of grocery store flowers in her hands and he wears Liam's old suit as they stand in front of a judge, _together_.

They buy two bus tickets and board with his duffle bag and her duct-taped backpack holding all their worldly goods, and they sit in the back and hold hands and make plans as the bus lumbers south. He'll enlist in the Navy and she'll finish school, they'll save every penny they can and make their home near a beach.

She falls asleep with her head on his shoulder and he looks out the window. His breath fogs the glass and he draws a heart on it with his fingertip. He's not stupid and he _knows_ the odds are stacked high against them, _knows_ it's dumb and reckless to get married at eighteen and seventeen, but everyone else left them and he couldn't do that to her, he couldn't stay but he couldn't leave her behind. They're together.

And for the first time he doesn't count down the months, the weeks, the days.

He looks forward instead.


End file.
